STILL WINDOW-DRESSING A Performance Report on the Third Year of the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) 2011-2012
20 June 2013 5:42 pm
The year under review, 2012, saw AICHR take limited steps in the direction of transparency and consultation with civil society. Some of these steps addressed criticism and reflect recommendations that our previous reports had highlighted:
- We called for AICHR to launch an official website to share developments in its work with the public – such a website was indeed launched in October;
- We encouraged AICHR to conduct more national and regional consultation meetings with civil society – 2012 saw more consultations at the national level, focusing largely on the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration (AHRD), and which varied widely, from extensive, inclusive consultations in a very small number of member states, through limited consultations in others to no consultations at all in several states. On the regional level AICHR held, for the first time, two official consultations with civil society, both focusing on the AHRD;
- We criticised AICHR for its failure to announce publicly the change of a national representative – in 2012 AICHR started providing information on the changing of national representatives in its press statements.